I noticed that after long periods of time shooting hand-held run and gun video that my pinky would literally hurt as I would end up using it to support my camera and lens setup.

Well, lately I’ve been holding my camera a new way… by the lens! Instead of the usual ‘photography’ style of holding the grip, I’ve been holding the lens with my left hand and focusing with my right. Despite how odd it may look, it’s surprisingly much more comfortable and ergonomic, similar the the typical ‘video camera’ handgrip setup.

I got the idea to re-grip my DSLR from a video by Dmitri (from megasetphotography.com), he was having issues with his Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 DI VC USD and shared his method of pulling focus while zooming.

I posted an article talking more about it, you can check out that article here.

Unlike Dmitri’s style, I tend to keep the lens at a fixed zoom and generally just adjust my focus with my other hand. And as I mentioned in the video, it may not add any extra stability, but it sure helps relieve a tired hand from the smaller grip of the Canon Rebel series.

Give it a try and see what you think!

A sidenote about the video:

You’ll notice that I’m shooting at 50mm which isn’t ideal for handheld moving shots. I wanted to do an extreme test and see how this method works.

Unfortunately, this test footage doesn’t represent the stability of holding the camera like this. I’ll have to post a follow up sometime to show a better comparison.